Haidilao enters campus: the winning strategy of "intercepting flow" thinking

Recently, Haidilao's presence in campuses has become a hot topic among the public. Starting from Haidilao's operating ecology, this article analyzes the timely changes in Haidilao's marketing and promotion strategies, and explains the thinking logic of "intercepting marketing" behind it. It is recommended for students who are interested in marketing in the catering industry.

Recently, I saw a news report saying that Haidilao opened a campus hotpot restaurant in a university in Xi'an.

Why did Haidilao, whose average customer spending is not low, open hotpot restaurants on campus? Some people may wonder what tricks it is playing? However, in my opinion, this is a typical "interception marketing" thinking.

In the stock era, market competition is intensifying. Whoever can reach users first is more likely to win in the market competition. Therefore, when companies do marketing today, they must understand the thinking of "intercepting traffic".

In order to help you better understand what "interception marketing" is, I will use 4 stories to tell you why Haidilao does this and how it works.

1. From waiting for the rabbit to fishing in the open sea

1. From the store entrance to the elevator entrance

Earlier this year, I discovered that Haidilao’s way of acquiring customers in shopping malls was very different from before.

Once, I took the elevator to the fourth floor of a shopping mall. There was a clerk standing at the entrance. He greeted me with a smile and gave me a coupon. Did you know that at that time, I was still nearly 50 meters away from the Haidilao store?

Later, when I came out after finishing my meal, I found that the escalator exit opposite was also "occupied" by Haidilao. Even when there were many customers coming at once, the Haidilao employees at the escalator entrance were too busy to handle them.

Other employees of Haidilao who were not far away would jog over, greet customers warmly, and give coupons to customers. That scene really surprised me.

It seems that Haidilao not only has good service, but also does a good job in "intercepting traffic" marketing. No wonder other restaurants are deserted, but theirs always has a long queue.

Excellent companies always have a strong sense of crisis, and when the environment changes, they will also adjust their marketing methods, from waiting for opportunities to fishing in the open sea.

In short, we must do our best to maintain growth and attract customer flow.

2. From shopping malls to concerts

Compared with the interception at the elevator entrance mentioned above, what became more popular some time ago was Haidilao’s “interception” at the concert.

He did not compete with other stores in the mall, but directly jumped out of the mall to intercept customers from further away. Facing the changes in the market environment, Haidilao chose to take the initiative.

In July this year, Haidilao was the first to appear at the door of a celebrity concert. Instead of delivering hot pot takeout, it dispatched buses to pick up fans for free to eat hot pot, and even put up welcome banners.

It is worth mentioning that the content of the banners is not the same, but focuses on "personal customization". For example, the banners at Wang Sulong's concert were "Welcome all Xiaolongbao", but at Angela Zhang's concert, they were changed to "Team Shaoxian, go home for dinner".

Imagine a large concert, with tens of thousands of fans leaving the stadium at the same time. The crowds were so crowded and slow that it took more than ten minutes for the crowds to leave. What was even more annoying was that the number for taxis was ranked outside the top 100 because of the traffic jam outside the stadium.

It is precisely because of this focus on pain point that Haidilao's decisive move to dispatch special vehicles to pick up fans seems so timely.

Such a thoughtful move not only provides a place for hungry fans to eat after the concert, but also solves the embarrassment of fans who want to go home but cannot get a taxi through the bus pick-up. For the store, this is also a clever way to "attract customers", killing three birds with one stone!

Think about it, Haidilao's brand is basically a household name. Even such a company still has a strong sense of crisis and tries every means to attract new customers.

Compared with those companies that only focus on the small piece of land in front of them, Haidilao has a much longer-term vision and is much smarter.

Today, we need to learn from Haidilao's "intercepting marketing" that even if we want to attract customers, we must do so in an innovative way. We cannot just rely on traditional methods such as Dianping and online promotion.

We must take the initiative and get closer to our users.

2. Seize the user’s life cycle earlier

1. Hotpot started with students: from society to campus

In the past, we always said “learning football from an early age”, and today Haidilao has taught us that “learning hotpot from a student age”.

Recently, Haidilao officially entered the campus and opened its first campus hotpot restaurant at Xi'an University of Arts and Sciences.

This store is located on the second floor of the cafeteria and is only open to school personnel. It is very different from the past in terms of products and pricing.

It is understood that the order is mainly set meals, with the double beef set meal at 98 yuan, the premium beef set meal at 56 yuan, and the double pepper chicken set meal at 48 yuan. Each set meal contains about 12 dishes, and of course you can order them separately if you don't have enough.

The single-order hot pot dishes are also priced exclusively for campuses, with double pepper chicken slices at 9.9 yuan and vegetarian dishes priced between 3 and 5 yuan. The overall price is 40% to 80% off compared to ordinary stores.

You should know that the cost of the hot pot soup base alone is more than ten yuan, plus labor costs and losses. With such pricing, there is basically no profit. So why does Haidilao insist on opening hot pot restaurants on campus?

In my opinion, Haidilao’s primary purpose in doing this is not to make money, but to grab users and seize their life cycle. They want to make them like themselves while they are still on campus.

The market environment is constantly changing, and the competition in the hotpot industry is particularly fierce. Today, Haidilao no longer waits for students to choose them after graduation.

Instead, we should take the initiative to enter the campus, attract them in advance, and cultivate users' consumption habits. This is what I mean by "starting hot pot with students."

Compared with the changes in scenes from store entrances to elevator entrances and concerts, "entering the campus" here emphasizes more on the company's seizure of users' early life cycle.

Whoever can seize the user's life cycle earlier is more likely to get users to contribute to consumption and cultivate them into loyal users. This is the real long-term purpose of Haidilao's "entering campus" this time.

For other brands, you might also want to think about how you can seize the user life cycle earlier.

The best time to plant a tree is ten years ago. The second best time is now. If so, please act now!

2. Milk powder starts from pregnant mothers: from late pregnancy to early pregnancy

Last year, when we were providing consulting services to a milk powder brand, we also used Haidilao’s “interception marketing” approach.

Today, the milk powder industry is facing tremendous competition. On the one hand, the birth rate is declining and the number of babies is decreasing. On the other hand, milk powder companies are also becoming more and more concentrated, and price wars and marketing wars are very fierce.

At that time, customers were also faced with how to improve the conversion rate of offline potential customers.

In past marketing activities, whether it was mothers’ classes, hospital cooperation, or pregnancy expo, marketing personnel focused more on the third trimester (8-10 months), when mothers are most likely to have the need to prepare milk.

Therefore, the early and mid-pregnancy periods are generally not given much attention, because in terms of follow-up time, a lot of energy is invested in maintenance, but the output is not obvious.

But we believe that we must take a step forward in today's competitive environment. So we helped our client launch an internal "New Customer Program for Pregnant Mothers".

That is, in marketing activities, we also design some activities for pregnant women in the early and mid-term of pregnancy, attract them to join social groups and WeChat accounts, and then carry out periodic operational cultivation.

Because we intervene in the pregnancy life of expectant mothers in the early stages of pregnancy, and we have parenting consultants to care for them, answer their questions, have more interactive contact with them, and win their trust. So when they have needs, they will think of us first.

According to the data, the final purchase conversion rate of more than 1,000 pregnant mothers we maintain is 3 times higher than the market data.

This is exactly what we expected. By intervening in the user life cycle in advance, we can improve the conversion rate. This is also a marketing mindset of intercepting traffic.

I think this kind of thinking is worth learning from and imitating by all companies now.

3. Final Thoughts

Whether it is the extension and change of the scene or seizing the user's life cycle, what is revealed behind it is the company's "intercepting marketing" thinking.

In today's market environment of stock competition, it is obviously not feasible to sit back and wait for opportunities to come. Enterprises should go fishing in the distant seas like Haidilao and intervene in the user's life cycle earlier.

Of course, we should also pay attention to the "end point" of the user's entire life cycle, that is, membership. Only by locking in high-value users (super users) in the enterprise can the stable growth of the enterprise be guaranteed.

Author: Yan Tao San Shou, WeChat public account: Yan Tao San Shou